Looking forward to our House of Bedlam concert this Saturday at LSO St Luke’s. I thought I’d share the score to a new piece hot off the press for this concert.
I’m trying to work out what’s led me to a (partially) open scored piece where half the performers are playing objects. Sort of just the right tools for the job I think. However I don’t think I can deny the influence of the new creative practice course (CAPPA) I ran at Snape Maltings over the summer – especially when the participants were so open, James Saunders and Tim Parkinson gave such a great performance, and Hanna Harman and Amber Priestley spoke so beguilingly about their work. I think I just kinda want in.
I’ve also been mainlining Sarah Hennies’ pieces though Spotify, Soundcloud and vinyl for over a few months now. Guest lecturing at the Manchester School of Fine Art last week I was bowled over to the students’ performance of her Everything Else (not least becuase of the objects they chose) and her new Blume record Embedded Environment just haemorrhages class from start to finish. Decontamination is featuring her extraordinary long film/documentary/video art/live performance piece Contralto next March. More on that soon but you heard it here first (unless you’re one of the billion people I’ve already told becuase I’m pretty excited about this).
So this new piece is for melody instruments that can play in unison – at least two and an even number – and two objects performers (again at least two etc.). It’s a kind of arrangement of hollow yellow willow, an orchestral piece from last year, but pared down to bare bones and with plenty of choices for the players to make. The electronics can be chosen by the players (although I’m happy to make suggestions) and the objects are ideally metal balls swirled in metal bowls and corks swirled in wooden or plastic bowls (but I’m open to suggestions). It’s 4-5 minutes long and weirdly slightly but dense. I’m looking forward to hearing the first rehearsal this week.
Larry Goves 